News

The first fencing premiership BUCS tournament was held in Oxford two week ends ago, where the home crew as well as Cambridge, UCL, Bristol and the mighty Imperial crossed swords once again.
For two days, the valiant teams competed to take lead in the race for the coveted league title. Saturday started with an early 9am match against Bristol. Winning the weapon’s order toss, we decided to start with our foilists who were so pumped they had begun their warm-up the night before. Despite a tricky opposition, the team pulled off a promising 45-42 win. Sabre was up next, and we decided to sharpen the game. A ruthless and almost perfect performance by Chris “8pak” Lawrence lead to a 45-15 sweep, and left no time for the opposition to realise that their match was getting out of hand. This inspired the epee to finish off the match, scoring 41 points and giving the newly named “Pimperials” a comfortable win, 131-102.

Next on the list was the talented Cambridge team, an old rival that has been known to give Imperial fencers a hard time… Foilists were put up first and trailed by a few hits against a strong side. However as the match progressed, Imperial fencer “Super-Soren” Pfizer got increasingly angry, leaving no chances for a terrified Cambridge team. A beautiful finish by Glen “The Beast” Ostacchini turned the tables round and ended the match in a 44-42 win. Sabre was up next and felt pressured to perform after the textbook foil win. But the sabreurs were too proud to be outdone by another weapon and slashed their way through the opposite side to fetch a brutal 45-18 win. This provided a precious lead against Cambridge’s tricky Epee team. The epeeists did not take this as a sign to rest though, and battled to the finish getting an impressive 35 hits. This totalled to a 124-105 for Pimperials, showing the opposition who was really dominating the tournament. Not this year, Cambridge2far.

After a long tiring day of winning, the Imperial fencers gathered their forces to fight the Blues for Saturday’s last match. To the keen Imperial foilists’ disappointment, the weapon’s order toss was lost so the sabreurs reluctantly warmed up to start the match. Just kidding, they absolutely could not wait to kick some butt. The trio sharpened their swords and slew the Oxford sabreurs 45-15 with a star indicator by Didier “Old-School” Nolhmann. As Oxford’s strengths lying in Foil and Epee, the next match promised to be challenging. However Pimperial foilists kept it together, and with some swift attacks from Clyde “The Beard” Fare, reached a safe 36 hits against their on-form adversaries. The tension was at its peak as Epee started the last leg, needing 25 hits to win against the Blues. A difficult start showed that it was not going to be an easy finish. Wanna-be epeeists Camille Van Hoffelen and “M-Iron Man” used their sabre speed to confuse the opponents, pushing the Oxford team’s pride a little further into the ground with Maiyuran’s toe shattering foot flick. In the second half of the match however, Oxford changed tactics and played time. They were trying to avoid being hit, betting that their anchor would be able to catch it all up against our second-finisher. Little did they know that Jonathan “Ice-Croft” Ashcroft was the coolest man alive, and slowly took apart the top Oxford epeeist’s game in a thrilling penultimate bout. This gave the leverage for Harry “The Flick” Gulliver to finish off the match 45-25, winning overall by one point. Or as we like to call it, “one-ing” against the Blues.

After a well deserved lie-in on Sunday, Pimperials got ready for the last match of the tournament against an impressive, newly promoted UCL team. Sabre was set to start. The on-form UCL side fenced really well, but the sabre trio kept focus and won a comfortable 45-25. Epee was granted the arrival of resident star Jamie “The Hulk” Simpson direct from Bratislava U20 World Cup. His intimidating shouts and signature Green Mask spurred the team forwards. Harry “The Flick” Gulliver proceeded to destroy the opposition with his flawless technique in a 12 hit run, leading to a huge 38 points against an international standard UCL side. This left foil with a tense finishing task. A combative UCL side grinded away hits and kept up the suspense down to the last few seconds. Despite the building tension, a solid performance from “Super-Soren” and “Is it a sabreur, is it a foilist, is it an epeeist, no, it’s M-Iron Man” carried the Imperial team 2 points from the win in the penultimate bout. This paved the way for Glen “The Beast” Ostacchinni and his imperturbable concentration to shine at the tensest of moments and take the win by scoring 4 consecutive parries over the UCL finisher. Pimperial won the last match of the weekend 118-114, coming back home with a clean sheet and hunger for many more.
This week end proved to be a massive team effort, where the 10 Imperial men came together and showed how strong and talented they were. The other universities of the premiership have now been warned. Imperial is the team to fear for this year’s BUCS title.

We have had a great start to this year! Firstly, a big Imperial Fencing Club welcome to all of our new members. It is great to see so many new people joining us this year.

We thoroughly enjoyed partaking in Freshers Fair; drawing in the crowds on Dalby court with fencing demonstrations. It was a great success, as we had many people signing up to our mailing list, team trails and taster sessions. Many thanks to our club members for their help with this event.

We saw some brilliant fencing at our competitive team trials. Congratulations to those who made it onto one of our fencing teams and best of luck with your matches! We also have a large turnout every Friday of enthusiastic beginners for our novice course, which will run until the end of term. Many of our novices have entered the National Novice competition in Warwick (which will take place on November 30th. We wish them the best of luck!

Our BUCS results so far:

Imperial Men’s 3rds:

16th October: Imperial 62 – 135 UCL 2nd Team

23rd October: Imperial 131 – 103 Hertfordshire 1st Team

30th October: Imperial 88 – 131 City
Imperial Men’s 2nds:

13th November: Imperial 135-65 Sussex

Imperial Women’s 2nds:

76-135 – Royal Holloway

120-130 – Queen Mary

38-135 – UCL

The Men’s 1st Team had their first matches of the year last weekend, and won all their matches! More results to come soon.83-127 – Sussex
131-107 – Brunel

So overall massive congrats to everyone on the teams!

The Women’s 1st Team have their first matches tomorrow (20th November) and this weekend – good luck!

More BUCS matches will happen every Wednesday for the rest of term.

Congratulations to our club members Glen Ostacchini and Zoe Robinson who came 2nd and 9th places, respectively, in the Welsh open. Additionally, in the London Team Trophy, our epee team came 1st place and our sabre team came 2nd place. Well done!

The year has also kicked off with some great social events. Firstly, getting to know all the new club members over some delicious cocktails at B@1, and last week we had our annual Freshers bowling event, where many of us showed that we’re better fencers than bowlers.

Finally, we would like to welcome our new coach, Giorgio, to the club. He is proving to be a very popular teacher, skilled in all three weapons. Thank you for your great tuition so far!

The annual Namih Cup is ongoing! The cup is named after a previous President, Chris Namih (current Honorary Chair), after he had turned the club around from ~20 members to ~70 members and a completely new and solid structure, which we’re using even today, in only two years time. The competition is meant to provide a bit of end of year fun and is done in teams of three. The teams are meant to be one experienced, one intermediate and one novice, all fencing foil (regardless of normal weapon preference) and each team match going up to 15.

The teams this year are (please note that team names are alcoholic drinks):

Screaming Orgasm: Cosmin, Georgios, Adrien

Grateful Dead: Ed, Mihael, Sarah

Hoegarden: Outi, Veronica, Neil

Dirty Little Girl Scout: Loek, Nick, Oscar

Bloody Mary: Chris, Adam, David

G&T: Charlotte, Caitlin

Current Ranking

1. Screaming Orgasm (1.000 +20)

2. Grateful Dead (0.666 +11)

3. Hoegarden (0.666 +5)

4. G&T (0.333 -5)

5. Dirty Little Girl Scout (0.333 -14)

6. Bloody Mary (0.000 -12)

If you didn’t turn up last week, don’t let it put you off for next session! We’re more than happy to accommodate for more teams and also adjust team members that don’t turn up next week.

March means end of spring term and end of BUCS season. The AGM was held, a new committee elected and Women’s 1st & 2nd and Men’s 1st wrapped up their respective seasons with Championship & Trophy semi-finals and finals. In the middle of everything we also managed to fit in a friendly with Sussex.

The Championship semi-finals were held on the 6th March, on the first of two (to us relevant) “BUCS Big Wednesday”. Men’s 1st faced Edinburgh 1st home at Ethos, whereas Women’s 1st returned to Cardiff. The girls had beaten Cardiff twice already during the season, however they were aware that they could surprise and decided not to take anything for granted. Upon arrival, they found a Cardiff team that had been unable to field all their top fencers, leaving Imperial to confidently win 135-96! The men weren’t disappointed against Edinburgh either, after the sabreurs had started things off with a 45-18 victory. After 40-45 in foil, they needed 24 hits in epee and even if the opponents were strong they were able to score 38-45 before the end of 9 bouts, and both teams were heading to Leeds for Championship finals!

Women’s 2nd had a busy month, with 3 matches: 2 league and the Trophy final. Whilst the 1sts were tackling their semi-finals, they’d travelled out to Brunel but were 6 hits short of a victory (115-121). However, they were still aiming for the Trophy final, the day before Championship finals, more than anything else. In Leeds, they faced Aberdeen 1st, a strong team which had gone unbeaten throughout the year. IC’s girls fought hard, but had to see the return of loss-by-6-points (104-110). They were still pleased with how they’d done, and made sure to end the season on a good note by beating Royal Holloway by 135-98 the following day. Men’s 2nd wrapped up their season against ULU 2nd, a match which ended 123-133.

To break the BUCS trend, and encourage people of all levels to compete together, a friendly against Sussex University was organised. A group of 16 fencers, mixed foil and epee, went down to join their training and turn it in to a mini-competition. After a mix of epee and foil matches, the final winner varied depending on who you asked; they’d won 3 out of 5, however we’d won based on points. We’re obviously going for the latter option and are hoping to be able to host them sometime soon!

Getting people to turn up to the AGM this year had a new twist: pizza. It turned out successful as a whole 30 people joined to vote in a new committee as well as listened to a summary of what has happened through the year.

Championship finals were on last thing, the day after W2nd’s Trophy final. Both were facing Cambridge but the settings were pretty much mirrored: the IC women’s had won the league with Cambridge second having lost only to IC whilst Cambridge’s men had won the league ahead of IC who had dropped two matches, against Cambridge. The ladies started their match with sabre, pulling up to a solid start of 45-32. Epee had a closer call, finishing it at 45-40 but it meant that foil needed 27 hits for us to win the match. Easy some might think, but Cambridge’s foil team is very strong so tension remained high. Outi tackled the first match with some newly discovered creativity and energy, passing the bar to Alice after 5-0. Our foilists were not in for a disappointment, and kept the lead for several bouts whilst showing off some brilliant fencing. 32-45 and victory was ours!

The guys had a harder nut to crack. It started off on a good side, because even if epee lost their final result (38-40) was much better than previous encounters and set the hopes for the rest of the team. Foil had a tougher time and ended at 31-45, putting pressure on the sabreurs to win by at least 45-28. They won sabre, but by 45-44 after having lagged behind for most of the match until Maiyuran stepped up in the last bout and turned it around. However, the points didn’t add up to IC’s favour and had to admit Cambridge the better team.

I thought the March newsletter was going to be a short one, but how wrong could I be! That’s the end of term and I probably won’t be writing much for a while. I hope you’ve enjoyed the year and that you’ll continue joining us for our Friday sessions until term ends!
Fencing love,

Charlotte

Sussex Friendly Group Photo

Mysterious BUCS fencer, or… something.

Women’s 2nd Silver medalists

W1st cheer as the winning hit is scored.

Zoe and Outi hug and are beaming of joy after taking the Championship title for 3rd year running

It may be that February is shorter than other months, but would this stop ICFC from doing stuff? On the contrary! It appears to be a very competition and match loaded month.

Men’s 1st team tracked to Oxford to complete their second premier weekend. Since Oxford had been unable to make it for when we were hosting, there were some issues around re-organising it, so in the end it was declared a void. Other than that the second weekend in large mimicked the first with all victories bar against Cambridge, and Glen was named “BK MVP” for his efforts as foil anchor.

Both Men’s and Women’s 1st then had their first round of Championship knock-out matches at Ethos, against Manchester and Birmingham respectively. The matches were reasonably relaxed and were both won, the Men by 126-107 and Women 126-88. Semi finals are coming up this Wednesday, with the girls having to track to Cardiff (despite being the higher ranked team) and the Men greeting Edinburgh on home ground. Given that both win their matches, it’s off to Leeds in late March for the finals!

In Leeds we will also be joined by the Women’s 2nds who have had a brilliant season. Having had to travel a lot for the Trophy knock-out matches, they have held their spirits high and gone on to first beat Exeter by 130-127 in the quarter finals and later Plymouth by 124-120. They have the final in Leeds on Tuesday 19th March (Championship finals the day after) against the winner of Aberdeen and Sheffield. As for their league, they had to leave a walkover against Surrey after being unable to field a team resulting in them being ranked 4th with two matches to go.

Men’s seconds are wrapping up their league and only have one match left. Their league has proven way to tough despite a good team, but the mood as still been kept on the good side of things and they trot on. Men’s 3rd have had their last match for the season and have ended on 3 victories and 3 losses, ranked 4th out of 7 in their league.

BUCS Individuals took place last week as well, and the club did well this year too. In Men’s sabre we had an all IC final between Maiyuran and Camille, who offered a good show before it ended 15-14 for Maiyuran. The other medal collected was by Caitlin in Women’s epee, meaning we had one of each value. All IC results:

As if BUCS wasn’t enough, two teams went to Paris for the yearly international student competition hosted by École Polytechnique. Entered was one foil team of novices (Cosmin, Martin and George) and the Women’s 1st Epee team (Charlotte, Caitlin and Kat). The latter only came for the team event, but surprised the other teams by rocking up unknown and going on to win, whereas the three foilists fenced both Individual and teams. Final results have not yet been uploaded, but all competitors had great fun and are already looking forward to next year!

Finally, we have the AGMs coming up very soon, so by the next newsletter I will be able to announce the new committee! Don’t forget to stand for the positions (you can find a list of them here) by emailing fencing [at] imperial.ac.uk and get someone to second you!

Fencing love,

Charlotte

Glen in L32 @ BUCS

Women’s epee quarter final @ BUCS

Supporting team members at BUCS!

Caitlin at Women’s Epee Prize ceremony @ BUCS

Men’s sabre final @ BUCS

The Imperial squad in Paris!

Men’s foil being bouncy in Paris

Men’s foil being bouncy in Paris

Women’s Epee final against Sheffield. Final score 45-23.

Changeover between bouts in team final in Paris

Women’s Epee team incl Paula (who came along despite being unable to fence)

It has only been a few weeks since term started, but a fair amount has happened nonetheless. The novices are now fencing electric full time, and friendly matches against both UCL and Sussex later on are being planned. Some of them have gone to the friendly competitions organised by Central and have found them great of fun.

The teams have been kept busy as well: Women’s 2nds are on to the quarterfinals in the BUCS Trophy after having beaten Royal Holloway away 135-110. They’re doing well in the league as well, with another away victory against ULU, that time with the impressive score 135-57. Very well done ladies!

Men’s 2nds fenced UCL 1st recently, a team which judging by level would do well even in the Premier League, and had to find themselves defeated on home grounds by 135-89. Men’s 3rd have got a good wave going, first beating UCL 2nd 133-128 and then a week later ULU 2nd 133-96.

Men’s 1st have finally got around to starting their Premier League matches and were successful against both Bristol (122-93) and UWE (134-104) but Cambridge had gotten too strong and won 121-104. Women’s 1st only fenced two matches, against Cambridge and UCL and won both with 128-120 and 131-90 respectively.

Overall, Imperial is the university with the most BUCS point for fencing, and we’re also Imperial’s best sport with 166 points (closest is Table Tennis with 95 points…)

The end of term is now very near, and Christmas trees are flashing all around campus. With only one training left this term, I figured it was time to post another newsletter.

Let’s start with the novices! There have been a lot of enthusiastic newcomers to the club, which is amazing! For the first 3 weeks we had taster sessions and I think almost 80-100 turned up. Of these, about 40 have continued on our Novice Course, where they have been taught the basics for a few weeks and now on the last training were introduced to electric fencing.

For the teams the results have varied. The Men’s 2nd team have found that the level of their league has gone up massively so they’re yet to get a victory. We should give them credit for still keeping it up though, and you’ve got all our support! The Men’s 3rd have had a better season with 2 victories out of 6. Our Men’s 1st have yet to fence any of their matches, as there have been some issues around scheduling the weekends.

The women are currently proving to be stronger and the 2nd team have won 3 out of 5 and are currently ranked 2nd in their league (South Eastern 1A). The 1st team has managed to live up to their winning suite from previous years and is leading their league with 6 out of 6 victories.

On the social side we’ve had both Fresher’s Bowling and a Christmas Dinner, both of which were great success. It was great to see some fresh faces on both, a student club always relies on more people joining in. And how can we say no to more people being enchanted by the sport?

I wish you all a merry, merry Christmas and I’m looking forward to seeing you back next term!

Loek Janssen pokes you in the ribs. It’s called fencing, don’t get so mad…

Rolling into Essex campus the slightly understrength 3rd team were prepared for a bashing, things started well with Jamie ‘destroyer’ Simpson damaging Essex in the warm-up. Then first up was our foil team of Andy Simpson, Niall Corry and Thoe Suter. Getting us off to a great start was old timers Thoe and Andy who dropped only three points for the first 10 to imperial, and then new to the team fresher Niall showed his worth (and flexible arm skills) in a 5-1 victory. The three musketeers continued their fine form and put imperial into an impressive 45-14 lead.

Then team captain Loek Janssen, new team member Pavitar Singh and conscripted foillist Thoe stepped onto the piste for sabre. Despite starting well the team fell to a 30-24 deficit with just 3 bouts (to 5) to play. However a late push from Pav and Thoe brought imperial to within 3 points of their opponents, leaving it to the captain to win his spurs with a stunning (lucky) final hit against his Essex counterpart to win sabre 45-44.

Finally with a strong lead and time running out the epee team went onto the piste to attempt to bring the match home. Due to the absence of a couple of epeeist, Pav and continuing star of the show Thoe would provide the support to Jamie Simpson in the final bouts. Generally the slowest of the 3 weapons the lack of time prompted some show stopping fighting and a 5-1 win to Jamie in just 27 seconds (surely some sort of record). Fittingly three-weapon Thoe provided the overall match winning hit while Pav and Jamie secured a victory with a great 45-34 win. Giving Imperial a fantastic win of 135-92 in all 3 weapons and so bringing a successful end to the 3rd teams Essex adventure.

It’s a cold Saturday morning as IC Fencing Women’s 1st‘ makes their way over to Oxford. It’s the first weekend out of two, and they’re going to fence Cardiff University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and UCL, the other 4 strongest teams in the South of UK. The epee team, first up onto the piste, consists of three new recruits: Paula Heister, Kat Young and Caitlin Jones, and an old member Charlotte Levin. The nerves are tense, for the past two years the women’s 1st team has remained unbeaten; will they do it again?

First opponents are Cardiff, newcomers in the league who prove very strong in epee. Despite best efforts from the Imperial girls, they faced a 39-45 defeat, already putting some pressure on foil and sabre. Determined to still do their best, they focus on the next match, Oxford. Kat and Paula showed their new alliance as they watched their old team lose by 44-31, giving the team’s confidence a boost. Unfortunately, it’s shaken again as they lose to Cambridge by a mere single hit, 43-44. By the last match against UCL, Kat had to leave early and Paula was not feeling well, so with a team slightly out of balance IC lose 35-45. Feeling slightly guilty, they pass the baton to the sabre team with team captain Zoe Robinson, the fresher Emma Horrix and Jing Xiao (Jingles) who fenced for the Women’s 2nd last year.

They don’t have to worry for long. Zoe, Emma and Jingles set the bar high in the first match and prove exactly how strong they are by demolishing Cardiff 45-13. They continue to impress as they first beat Oxford 45-38, grow stronger against Cambridge with 45-24, and finally, gaining even more momentum, land at 45-19 against UCL. With the epeeists reassured that everything is under control, and the sabreurs with a strengthened confidence the day comes to an end, and the foilists can look forward to being a few hits ahead.

Sunday morning presents foil. Zoe is joined on the piste by Alice Mitchell, 4th year running on the team, and Outi Supponen who have just returned from a year abroad. Thanks to sabre’s impressive performance the day before, they have a 26 hit lead to Cardiff as they start their first match. It’s extended as they win by 45-29, resulting in the season’s first overall victory, 126-87! They confidently continue by beating Oxford 45-39, counting the second overall victory of 134-108. Cambridge, on the other hand, has gained some new foilists, and beat the Imperial girls by 34-45, but with the aggregated scores being 122-114 Imperial remain calm and confident.

The weekend is coming to an end as the girls have the final match against UCL. Having done the maths in advance, Zoe, Alice and Outi know they need to score at least 29 hits to secure the overall victory. However, how can you say no to winning if the option is there? They end it at 45-34, giving a total of 125-98, and lengthening the Women’s 1st Teams unbelievable streak of wins to 27 matches in a row, spread over more than 2 years!